Meanwhile there was a man who saw clearly the one way to restore a stable government and to content the nation. George Monk, a calm, self-reliant soldier who commanded the army in Scotland, had resolved to use his regiments, on whose obedience he could implicitly count, to restore legal and constitutional rule. His own private ambition lay in the direction of a quiet and assured competence, not of an unsteady grasp on supreme power. He put himself secretly in communication with the exiled Prince of Wales and the chiefs of the English Royalists. No one else knew his design. Crossing the Tweed with 7000 men, he scattered the troops of Lambert and seized London. Then he summoned all the surviving members of the old "Long Parliament," as it had sat in 1642, to meet at Westminster, on the ground that it had been the last undoubtedly legal and constitutional government that England had possessed. The members met, now for the most part elderly men, cured of their old fanaticisms by ten years of military despotism, and ready for any reasonable compromise. By Monk's direction they issued writs for a new Parliament, and then formally dissolved themselves.
The Convention Parliament.—Declaration of Breda.
The new or Convention Parliament met on April 26, 1660; it was full of Royalists, who for the first time since the civil war dared show themselves and avow their opinions. Monk now openly began to negotiate with Prince Charles for a restoration of the monarchy, on the basis of oblivion of the past, and toleration and constitutional government for the future. The exiled Stuart promised these things in his "Declaration of Breda," though there were in his promises certain reservations, which cautious men regarded with distrust.
Return of Charles II.
But the realm was yearning for repose and peace, and the Parliament accepted Charles's offer with haste and effusion. Lambert and a few fanatical regiments vainly attempted to struggle against the popular will, but Monk crushed them with ease. In May 1660, the Prince of Wales was formally invited to return and resume his hereditary rights. On the 29th of the month he landed at Dover, and was saluted as Charles II. by the unanimous voice of a rejoicing nation.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHARLES II.
1660-1685.
Character of Charles.
Charles Stuart, who now returned to fill the English throne, was a young man of thirty. He had spent the last fourteen years of his life in exile, the penniless guest of many unwilling hosts in Holland, France, and Germany. Save eighteen uncomfortable months passed in the camp of the Scottish Covenanters, none of the days of his manhood had been spent on this side of the sea. He was continental in his manners, thoughts, and life. He had picked up his personal morals at the French court, and his political morals from the group of intriguing exiles who had formed his wandering and impecunious court. He laughed at purity in women and honesty in men. He was grossly selfish and ungrateful. Knowing by long experience how bitter is the bread doled out by the exile's host, "how steep to climb another's stair," he had one fixed idea—"he would never," as he phrased it, "go on his travels again." He had resolved to stay in England at all costs, to enjoy the Promised Land, now, contrary to all expectation, fallen into his hands. Accordingly, he wished to get as much out of his kingdom as was compatible with the necessity of never offending the majority of the nation. His personal leanings lay in the direction of absolute power and Right Divine, but he was perfectly ready to sacrifice them to his prudence. If he had any religious bias, it led him in the direction of Romanism—a comfortable creed for kings—but he was quite prepared to pose as a zealous Anglican, just as during his stay in Scotland he had become a conforming Presbyterian.